In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending August 6th, 2022... the Fed’s next move, a mortgage rate rollback for home buyers, and a new all-time high for single-family rents.Hi, I'm Kathy Fettke and this is Real Estate News for Investors. If you like our podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review.Economic NewsWe begin with economic news from this past week. Federal Reserve policymakers say they are “nowhere near” the end of their fight against inflation. Four Fed Presidents spoke out on Tuesday, August 2nd, about their resolve to get inflation back down to 2%. San Francisco Fed Chief Mary Daly said that she is currently seeing a 50 basis point rate hike as appropriate in September, but she says: “If we just see inflation roaring ahead undauntedly, the labor market showing no signs of slowing, then we’ll be in a different position where a 75-basis-point increase might be more appropriate.” Comments from the other three Fed Presidents were similar. (1)And then there was a screamingly strong jobs report a few days later. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that hiring in July exceeded expectations. Nonfarm payrolls were up 528,000, and the unemployment rate dipped lower, to 3.5%. To put this in perspective, in the years leading up to 2020 when the economy was robust, job creation was closer to 195,000 per month on average.The unemployment rate is now back to its pre-pandemic level. As reported by MarketWatch, it’s tied for the lowest level since 1969. (2) Some economists see the strong jobs report as signs that the Federal Reserve will lean toward a more aggressive rate hike in September. KPMG Chief Economist Diane Swonk said in a CNBC report: “This is hot. For the Fed, this is another 75 basis point hike.” (3)The unemployment report shows a slightly elevated level of new claims. During the last week of July, 260,000 people applied for benefits which is an increase of 6,000 from the week before. The number of continuing claims was also higher by about 48,000. That brings the total number of continuing claims up to about 1.42 million, which is the highest level since April. (4)A new report on home price growth shows that year-over-year prices were up 18.2% in June. On a month-to-month basis, the CoreLogic report says they were up .6% for the 125th consecutive month of higher prices. This is more inflationary news that may convince the Fed to be more aggressive with rate future hikes. However, the report does shows that price growth is slowing down. CoreLogic expects it to drop to 4.3% by next June. (5)Higher home prices also increase homeowner equity. CoreLogic says the average borrower had $280,000 in home equity at the end of the first quarter. That’s a gain of about $64,000 over the past year, and a gain of about $125,000 over five years. (6) Those folks expecting a housing crash will have to consider why homeowners with so much equity and low fixed rate mortgage payments would suddenly abandon their homes. Higher home prices are slowing sales, and that's driving up inventory levels, but they are still nowhere they need to be. According to Realtor.com, active listings are about 30% higher than they were a year ago but are less than half of what they were in June of 2019 and about two-thirds of where they were in June of 2020. The good news is that homebuyers have a few more homes to choose from and a little extra time to make a decision, but only a little extra time. The Realtor.com trends report says that homes are spending just ONE extra day on the market compared to last year.(7)New home builders are also experiencing a sales slowdown and higher inventory levels. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, there are more than nine months supply of newly-built homes on the market. However, it can be difficult to gauge new home inventory because many of those homes are experiencing construction delays and not sales delays. (8)Another sign of the housing market slowdown is a sharp drop in con